COMMENT:These opening verses of Saundarananda require much deeper digging than I realised they required on first reading them.

This verse might be read simply as praise of Kapila's magnanimity and wisdom, but I don't read it like that.

Dirgha-tapas means "Long Suffering of Asceticism." Kavya and Angirasa may be taken as representative examples of religious thinkers -- poem-writers, hymn-composers and the like.

Can religious thought be useful to a person suffering under the influence of an auditory Moro reflex which is being stimulated by a source of unremitting external noise -- like a chain saw, or like a gun firing artillery shells?

When soldiers in WWI were suffering from shell shock, how much use to them was a Christian chaplain? How far in relieving their suffering could "Thy will be done" go?

The essence of religious thought might be Thy will be done. Seeing these words written by the graves of young men at war cemeteries in Northern France, I tend to be moved to tears.

So maybe there is a place for magnanimity and religious thought, but I rather read Ashvaghosha's expressions of high-mindedness and striving to be excellent in religious thought as expressing tendencies that I despise, primarily in myself -- as tendencies to be opposed in the battle against Mara.

kaavy-aaNgirasayoH (gen. dual): of Kavya and Angirasakaavya: mfn. (fr. kavi) , endowed with the qualities of a sage or poet , descended or coming from a sage ; m. a patronymic of ushanasUshanas: N. of an ancient sage with the patronymic kaavya (in later times identified with shukra , the teacher of the asuras , who presides over the planet Venus) aNgirasa: m. an enemy of viShNu in his incarnation of parashuraama (= aNgiras ?)aNgiras: m. N. of a RShi , author of the hymns of the Rg Veda, of a code of laws , and of a treatise on astronomy (he is considered as one of the seven RShis of the first ; the Vedic hymns , the manes of haviShmat , and mankind itself are styled his offspring. In astronomy he is the planet Jupiter , and a star in Ursa Major) aNgirasas: m. pl. descendants of aGgiras or of agni (mostly personifications of luminous objects) dhiyaa = inst. sg. dhii: f. thought , (esp.) religious thought , reflection , meditation , devotion , prayer ; understanding , intelligence , wisdom ; knowledge , science , art